How Trump’s Arctic strategy threatens US research funding
- Michael Walsh
Trump Administration’s securitisation of Arctic affairs and its implications for US federally funded research.
Over the next four years, the U.S. Government is likely to make significant investments on priority areas for Arctic research that advance the America First Agenda.
However, that will almost certainly come at the expense of areas for Arctic research that advance other policy agendas (e.g. climate change agenda).
The American people should therefore expect the next version of the National Plan for Arctic Research to articulate a very different set of priority areas and underlying principles for U.S. federally funded research related to the Arctic than the current one.
Background Information
On inauguration day, President Donald Trump not only issued an executive order that directed the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations to immediately submit a formal written notification of withdrawal from the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
He issued another executive order that directed federal agencies to fully exploit Alaskan territory purportedly for the benefit of the United States and the people of Alaska.
A few months later, President Trump issued yet another executive order that directed federal agencies to develop a strategic plan to “secure arctic waterways and enable American prosperity in the face of evolving Arctic security challenges and associated risks.”
The White House then turned to Arctic research. In May, the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC) of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) released a revised Implementation Plan (2025-2026) for the Arctic Research Plan (2022-2026).
Per the IARPC, that revision superseded the Arctic Research Plan (2022–2026) produced under the Biden Administration.
The U.S. Arctic Research Commission (USARC) took note of the new strategic plan. In July, it responded with a new report that identified the research needs for a secure and prosperous Arctic.
That report not only declared that Alaska is a strategic location with natural resources that advance the national interests of the United States. It specified two of the evolving Arctic security challenges for the United States.
The first is the regional expansion of Russia. The second is the regional engagement of the People’s Republic of China.
That same month, the National Science Foundation (NSF) published a Request for Comment for the next version of the National Plan for Arctic Research.
Among other things, that document declares that the United States “wants to remain a global leader in Arctic research and stewardship for many years to come.” Note the "a" instead of "the" before "global leader."
The NSF also chose not to recompete the award for a well-known nonprofit that promotes information sharing and knowledge exchange among U.S. Arctic researchers. As a consequence, the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (ARCUS) will shut down later this month.
Ironically, one of its last events will be an information session on the National Plan for Arctic Research (2027-2031) for U.S. Arctic researchers.
Securitization Process
The public record clearly shows that the Trump Administration is in the process of transforming Arctic challenges into existential threats to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. Per the new report by USARC, Alaska is not simply a strategic location.
It is a strategic location that could determine which independent state controls the world.
On the basis of that argument, the Trump Administration would probably argue that Arctic affairs should not simply be managed by the U.S. Government within the standard rules of democratic politics. Instead, it should be managed beyond those rules.
That seems to already be happening on the ground. Look at Greenland Affairs.
To be clear, the securitization of Arctic challenges is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the U.S. Government will be able to resort to extraordinary measures to deal with emerging Arctic challenges. On the other hand, it will likely erode the rule of law in the process.
That observation begs a couple of important public policy questions that are not being asked loudly enough by U.S. Members of Congress and the American people.
Specifically, it begs the normative questions of whether any Arctic challenges should be securitized and, if so, which ones should be securitized?
The answers to those questions carry implications for the follow-on normative question of what should be the strategic objectives and key deliverables for Arctic affairs. That includes those related to Arctic research.
Research Implications
The securitization of Arctic affairs will almost certainly have a significant impact on the priority areas and overarching principles for U.S. federally funded research related to the Arctic. That includes research related to area studies, engineering, science, and technology:
Priority Areas: Per the Implementation Plan (2025-2026), there are four priority areas for U.S. federally funded research related to the Arctic.
They include:
- Arctic Systems Interactions
- Community Resilience and Health
- Risk Management and Hazard Mitigation
- Sustainable Economies and Livelihoods.
However, those priority areas already appear to be changing. The USARC report introduced a different set of priority areas.
They include:
- Community security
- Economic security
- Energy security
- Military security
Interestingly, those priority areas appear to be loosely drawn from the securitization literature that is commonly associated with the Copenhagen School.
In Security: A New Framework for Analysis, Barry Buzan, Ole Weaver, and Jaap de Wilde famously conceptualized the levels of security as economic security, environmental security, military security, political security, and societal security.
Overarching Principles: Per the Implementation Plan (2025-2026), there are three principles for U.S. federally funded research related to the Arctic.
They include:
- Sustained Engagement
- Fairness
- Transparency
The problem is that not all of these principles and their standard interpretations are a good fit for a securitized issue. That is because a securitized issue not only provides the necessary rationale for selecting government secrecy over government transparency.
In some cases, it provides a strong rationale for selecting transactionalism over relationalism in international relations. To compound matters, the standard interpretation of the remaining principle is not well-aligned with the America First Agenda.
For the Trump Administration, fairness does not mean equality nor equity. It means meritocracy. That marks a significant departure from the Biden Administration.
The American people should therefore expect the National Plan for Arctic Research (2027-2031) to articulate a very different set of priority areas and overarching principles for U.S. federally funded research related to the Arctic.
Of course, that would have profound and disproportionate impacts on the people of Alaska.
That is why it is interesting that the U.S. Congressional Delegation from Alaska - Senator Lisa Murkowski, Senator Dan Sullivan, and Representative Nick Begich - has not made greater use of their oversight powers on these matters since the inauguration.
Michael Walsh is a researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand. This article was first published on High North News.